Flagstaff

 Flagstaff

May 13, 2022 by Stevie G

Traveled a bit down ol’ route 66, exploring some of the random southwest and seeing some of the sights. Strange experience going into vacation/travel mode, switching over from working/travel mode.

I don’t really have much to say about this area – really just a photography kinda thing. Grand Canyon, Grand Falls, Petrified Forest National Park. Beauty overload.

We spent a night in Kingman and went to a nearby Alpaca farm. The proprietor there was an interesting dood. We learned about alpacas and talked about all sorts of things for over an hour. This guy was about to retire and was building an earth berm house. He had a lot of ideas about science, history, other things. He spoke with a clarity and certainty, blended beautifully with outlandish conspiracy theories. Still, he wasn’t wrong about anything, just probably more eccentric than most. My kind of guy.

A few things worth mentioning that got me thinking. He often said “the math just makes sense to me” – for his earth berm house he had a rock solid argument about energy efficiency base temperature and so on. The other thing was he decided that 4,500 feet elevation is the ideal point to live at for longevity. Near Kingman, as it turns out, is pretty close to this. I’ve been considering elevation more and more as we travel – Henderson is at ~1,800 (felt pretty good), Flagstaff is at 6,900 (a bit too high), so I do think there is something to this. Having grown up at sea level with freezing winters and boiling humid summers, I think I do benefit from some elevation.

He also mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that the housing market is going crash in about two years or so (again – because the math doesn’t make sense). This was in April 2022, so we’ll see what happens…